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Code/Word/Play

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About The Event

How can you think of programming as a creative act? As writing that, like prose or poetry, aspires to create an aesthetic experience, rather than a purely functional one? Is it possible to write code that instils joy or some self-reflection the way a particularly moving passage might?

This Saturday, we explore strategies from literature and creative writing that can add richness to the experience of writing or interacting with code in a micro-hackathon.

- Come and explore the outlets for creative expression in coding, as in writing, over a hearty Brunch at Church Street Social.

- Build anything that plays with words, phrases and syllables, to remix pieces of literature, or come up with something entirely new.

Too vague? No problem, we've got a bunch of prompts to stir up creative juices:

Play with algorithmic poetry: For instance, build a random Haiku generator (a poem constituted by 17 syllables over three lines)

Play with word transformation: For instance, swap out words in a poem or a given passage with others based on arbitrary rules (for e.g., with homonyms - words that sound like the word you're swapping), build a basic crossword solver, play with repeated translation into different languages to see whether the final output matches an initial input sentence.

Think of this as an opportunity to play with code and words, building out tender little code-based beings that have no purpose whatsoever but to stimulate something unexpected when you interact with it.

Play with communication: For instance, build a chat bot to convert any given sentence over a chat into yoda speak, build a chat bot that responds in rhyme.

Play with memorable language: For instance, build a chrome new tab screen that generates random nuggets of Stoic wisdom from Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

Play with human language: Write an ode to code :)

We're building out a comprehensive list. Write to us with a few of your own!